


home (let me come home)

by loonyBibliophile



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, The Bunker(tm), discussion of abuse, little bit hurt/comfort, post 3.03, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 16:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16412126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonyBibliophile/pseuds/loonyBibliophile
Summary: It just started as a place to hide, to talk about the game and the cult, a place where they could be alone without FP or Alice and Polly hovering in the back of their minds. The bunker feels safe, regardless of what had happened there in the past. It’s safe and secret and, most importantly, it’stheirs.Just a short post episode piece about the bunker.





	home (let me come home)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Toryb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toryb/gifts).



It just started as a place to hide, to talk about the game and the cult, a place where they could be alone without FP or Alice and Polly hovering in the back of their minds. The bunker feels safe, regardless of what had happened there in the past. It’s safe and secret and, most importantly, it’s _theirs_. 

The first thing Betty brings into the bunker is a set of sheets. She takes them from the attic, a twin sized relic of childhood. God only knows how long the sheets on the cot have been there, or what’s been done on them. Sheets, pillowcases, and a bottle of lysol are all essential, as far as she’s concerned. Jughead is reassembling his conspiracy theory board from the trailer’s kitchen on one of the walls, and Betty is spraying every inch of the bunker with Lysol. Especially the pillows and mattress. They don’t sleep there, but they do mess around, rolling beneath the sheets, hiding from the world and lost in each other. 

A few days later, Jughead brings in an old power strip he found in a cupboard at the Blue and Gold, and a mini fridge he dug up at the scrap yard. 

“For snacks.” he’d said when Betty raised an eyebrow as he tucked it into one of the cramped space’s many corners. 

“You are a bottomless pit.” she’d replied, rolling her eyes. But the next afternoon, she tucks several cartons of yogurt and some sandwich fixings into the small fridge. 

Extra phone chargers show up on the table. Jughead finds a hot plate somewhere. There’s a pack of bottled water on the floor. Betty digs some money up from somewhere and buys a wifi hotspot booster for her phone, and somehow convinces her mother to upgrade her to an unlimited data plan. 

“It will be easier for us to work if we have internet.” she’d said with a shrug, setting her phone up near the bed before flipping open her laptop. It was a Sunday afternoon. Jughead settled in beside her, pulling up his own laptop and staring down his novel’s current draft while Betty tapped away at an essay. Neither of them says anything about the fact that they aren’t working on the investigation. 

The first time they sleep there is an accident. It’s the weekend after the rulebook gets given to everyone in school, and Friday night they hole up with Pop’s and thermoses of coffee and bags of junk food, along with several folders of photocopies from the city archives and all of Betty’s organizational note taking supplies. Betty falls asleep with a highlighter in her hand somewhere around three am, and Jughead carries her over to the cot, tucking the sheets around her. He meant to go back to work, but Betty looks so soft and warm curled up in the tiny, rickety bed, and he can’t help but slide in behind her, pressing her to his chest, and drifting off to sleep himself. 

After that, they start keeping clothes there, but only ‘for emergencies’ and repeat accidents like when they were studying the rule book. It snowballs then. Toothbrushes, extra toiletries, duffle bags of supplies tucked under the bed. Books. Jughead’s typewriter. Betty’s notebooks and journals. 

“When is the last time one of us was home?” Betty asks idly one night, sitting at the table in the middle of the bunker, highlighting segments of her literature assignment. Jughead, sitting on the cot, pauses in his rapidfire typing, looking off into the distance. 

“I have no idea. A few days?” he makes a face, shrugging, and returns to his current chapter. 

“Do you think they even noticed?” Betty asks, her voice gone slightly quiet. Jughead looks up then, frowning, and pats the space beside him. Betty gets up and crawls into bed beside him, wrapping her arms around his waist. 

“I don’t know. And I don’t care.” he puts his arms around her shoulders, burying a hand in her hair. She sags into him, pulling herself closer. 

“She told all those people, Jug.” Betty mumbles, voice half lost to the still of the room “She told them everything. About the stupid webcam thing, and about the shady guy and Chic. She told _Evelyn_! She goes to our school. She goes to our school, and my mom gave her information that implicates not just us, but you too, in a _murder_!” Betty clenches her fists, her eyes scrunching up to try and fight off tears. Jughead frowns, moving his hands to Betty’s and prying her fingers apart before lacing them into his own. He presses a lingering kiss to her knuckles. 

“And she and my dad both have information that could help us, that could help save actual lives, and they won’t give it to us, because they’re so afraid or ashamed of whatever they did in school. They can crow on all they want about protecting us. That’s not what it’s about. They’re scared and selfish.” Jughead rubs his hand violently across his face, and it’s Betty’s turn to reach out and soothe him, leaning in closer and putting her hands on his cheeks. “We shouldn’t be having to do this, Betts. We shouldn’t be… hiding from our parents in a literal bunker, trying to figure out what’s going on in this god forsaken town, while Alice and FP keep secrets and light things on fire and,” Jughead pauses, wrinkling his nose “fool around.”

“I know.” Betty says quietly, stroking her thumb along Jughead’s jaw. “Sometimes it feels like we’re the ones taking care of them. But I don’t want to, Juggie.” her voice just barely cracks, and Jughead pulls her closer. “My dad’s in prison. My mom and sister are in a cult and telling people dangerous secrets about me, and I’m trying to make sure nothing happens to them, and they couldn’t care less about me.”

“I’m sorry, Betty,” Jughead says soothingly “And I know that doesn’t fix anything. But I am. And I know this doesn’t fix anything either, but I care. I’m here, and I love you, and I will do anything and everything I can to keep you safe.” 

“I love you too, Jug.” Betty says softly, looking up at him, her head resting on his shoulder. “More than anything.”

He kisses her then, and it reminds her of their first time on the couch in the trailer. A kiss that wasn’t just a kiss, but a call for help, and an answer back. She winds her hands up into his hair, knocking his beanie off, and he slides his hands along her hips and up, up, up the bare skin of her back, making her shiver. 

A few days later, Jughead is in Greendale on an errand for the Serpents, and he stops in a worn down thrift store. Something in the window caught his eye, and he decides to bring it back. When Betty gets to the bunker that night from spending time at the speakeasy, Jughead’s purchase is sitting on the bed. It’s a small, old throw pillow, with a simple phrase needlepointed onto it. 

_Home Sweet Home_

**Author's Note:**

> this is cheesy but i had fun so. dedicated to my girl tori


End file.
